Anti-Fraud Buy and Real-Time Pricing Launch for IBM

IBM has acquired Koblenz, Germany-based anti-fraud software firm IRIS Analytics, for an undisclosed sum; and simultaneously announced the launch of a cloud-based service for retailers, IBM Dynamic Pricing.


The new pricing service monitors changes in performance data such as cart abandonment rates and browsing history; market conditions; and competitor pricing, to recommend actions for online retailers.

As an example, the IT giant says: 'A retailer might find that a competitor rolled out a promotion on a key product, reducing the price by 15 percent. IBM Dynamic Pricing evaluates and decides based on product availability, price sensitivity and customer demand that an 8 percent pricing change will still enable the retailer to compete and to achieve sales and margin objectives. This price would then be automatically updated online'.

Stephen Mello, VP IBM eCommerce & Merchandising, comments: 'This intuitive and dynamic pricing system improves visibility into what's happening in the market, allowing retailers to make decisions that are best for their businesses and customers alike'.


IRIS is a privately held company specializing in real-time analytics to help combat payment fraud. Its products, used by banks and payment processors worldwide, employ machine learning models to help analysts detect fraud in real-time, and act quickly to stop them / reduce their effect. The firm sees the combination of artificial intelligence and cognitive techniques with human experts as the optimum solution, and believes that as fraudsters become more technologically sophisticated and organized, and quicker to adapt, existing fraud detection techniques are unable to provide good cover.

Alistair Rennie, GM Industry Solutions at IBM, says the integration of IRIS and IBM's anti-fraud technology will allow users to implement countermeasures quickly, 'with more control and transparency, while at the same time assist with dramatically lowering false positives'.

IRIS CEO Constantin von Altrock comments: 'Defenses against financial crime are in critical need of innovation and improvement. As the payments industry evolves with new payments methods such as chip and PIN, mobile payments and immediate payments, the ability for financial institutions to accurately make decisions about what is suspicious and what is legitimate before the payment is executed is required'.


Web site: www.ibm.com .